PS Home downloaded 6.5m times

Sony has revealed that PlayStation Home has been downloaded 6.5m times and that profit, for the moment, is not the "driving priority".

"We do have a profit and loss on Home, and obviously revenue is an important part of it, just like with anything else. But our belief is that if you make the community happy, and get good content on to the platform - if you get a platform that people want to keep coming back to - then the monetisation aspect of it will almost take care of itself," PS Home director Peter Edward told GamesIndustry.biz.

"It's certainly not something that should be the driving force - not something that's the driving priority at this stage of development.

"That's not to say that we don't want to monetise the platform and that we don't have plans to do so," he added, "But it's definitely a kind of consequence of getting all the other factors right, rather than being a driving force. We're not in it to make a quick buck from Home, and then move onto the next thing - Home is a strategic platform for PlayStation, and as such we're developing it."

PlayStation Home went into open beta last December, a date well behind those initial October 2007 release forecasts. But Edward is "very pleased" with where the online virtual world is these days, and feels it's at a "tipping point of where the platform starts to gain momentum".

"We went to open beta in December and since then we've had something like 6.5 million downloads. We've got a very healthy active user base, and we're finding as well that people aren't just churning, they're returning - which is obviously key for something like this," he said.

"We're at the point now where we're starting to see our active user base go up, and we're getting more people coming back than are leaving, so we're at the tipping point of where the platform starts to gain momentum.

"That's really nice for us, because until that happens, you're hoping that it will happen, but you need the reassurance - so in that sense it's nice," added Edward.

He went on to say that more features will be "coming along soon", and that third parties are reinvesting in the platform and producing content after the initial surge of excitement.

It's not all smiles, though - PS Home's European community manager recently admitted that our region trails others in the number of themed areas that PS3 Avatars can explore.

Head over to GamesIndustry.biz for the full interview with Peter Edward to see what he plans to do about that, and what the future holds for PlayStation Home.